Certain types of soft goods are difficult to pick up and move about with mechanical contrivances. Particularly in the high production bakery industry, it has been difficult in the past to utilize mechanical transfer devices for picking up and moving about high volume baked goods, such as muffins, pastry items and the like which are baked in large quantities in pans or on belts within ovens, but thereafter must be handled manually.
Hence, the invention herein is concerned with a mechanical picker, that is, a device which provides extensible and retractable wires which can penetrate soft goods, such as baked items, for temporarily holding such items so that they may be picked up and transferred or loaded in other locations. This makes it possible to pick up relatively small items such as muffins, buns, and the like as well as pastry items and the like which have been iced and which otherwise would have to be manually handled.
The picker lends itself to being assembled in groups of pickers which may simultaneously operate to move a quantity of baked goods at one time, such as for example to unload a cupcake tray and permit the movement of the cupcakes simultaneously into a packaging area.
In contrast with prior art attempts to pick up and move such types of baked goods which are easily damaged, particularly when hot or warm, the concept here relates to the penetration of the baked goods with thin wires which then serve to support same until deliberate release or retraction. The picker here also lends itself for use in other places where similar types of goods are found which would otherwise be handleable only manually or with more complicated types of handling devices.